Everything and Nothing

Math can get pretty loopy, at least when we try to explain it. But according to author Alex Bellos, the most straightforward mathematical concept might be the loopiest. Then producer Mark Philips introduces us to William Basinski, a composer who loops analog tape to create a unique sort of music. One day, Basinski dug up some of his old tapes, stuck them into his player, and heard a melody in the throes of death.

Life and death are a very long loop of their own, as producer Lynn Levy discovered in talking with oceanographer Craig Smith. His career began with a simple question: what happens to a whale when it dies and sinks to the sea floor? Turns out nobody was quite sure. Craig describes the curious interplay between death and life at the bottom of the ocean.

Guests:

Contributors:

Tags:

Comments [18]

Bill McK
from Lexington, MA

Isn't the barber paradox the mathematical equivalent of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics? Applying quantum theory to the barber paradox, the barber is both the barber and not the barber at the same time. Then he (the barber) could give himself (the not barber) a shave and not violate the condition of the paradox.

Isn't the barber paradox the mathematical equivalent of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics? Applying the quantum theory to the barber paradox, the barber is both the barber and not the barber at the same time. Then he (the barber) could give himself (the not barber) a shave and not violate the condition of the paradox.

The story about the whale was very visual. You did a very good job of describing the visuals. It would have been a really good opportunity to harness the visual nature the the web to support the story with some visuals - photos of the stages of decay of the whale described by the story.

The Life and Death of a Melody; or on learning about disintegrating music loops on NPR; the metaphor for entropy

Music falls as dust to the groundnotes fail to adherethe recorded loop goes roundand with each go -arounda bit more of the filmthat coats the tapescrapes off untilthe tape comes clearwith each loopthe long sustained notesgrow shorter, droppingthe end-notemaking space for silence,for breath. As the tapewinds on, the notesbecome less, becomeshort staccato bursts,guttural and melancholy, the same way my father’smid-life vigor changed to shallow-breathednaps, to oxygen tanks, tosparse hard puffs we couldtime by the frightening silencein between, until the loopstoppedand the tape ranclear.

The sublime magic of the disintegrating analog tape loops literally froze me in place when I heard them earlier today, and I just listened to them several times again. Thank you for the info @ buying them from iTunes.

i love your show!if you are still wondering about the man named Gottlob: it´s a german name, and Gott means god (of course) and lob means (to) praise. The -lieb end of Gottlieb means something with love. Wether god loves the guy or the guy loves god, i don´t know.

Caught a bit of the Disintegration Loops on BBC 6music. Think it was Stuart Maconi's Freak Zone. Loved it! Have downloaded both podcasts, thanks very much. When I clicked on the itunes link to buy, it took me to a Danish site :-) Have no idea how many kroner to the pound...

Anyway, thanks again, and I've only just discovered your site, will be back for more!

The whale falls really blew me away. It took me twice as long to listen to this episode because I kept going back to it.Puts one in mind of life on Europa... and our planet and the universe in general.